SOCA socked by a DDoS attack

Serious crime on the serious crime agency

The website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in the UK has been subject to a cyberattack.

The site was taken offline late Wednesday night – and seems to still be offline at time of writing – but the organisation believes that a security risk was not posed by the events.

SOCA has released a statement saying, "We took action to limit the impact on other clients hosted by the [same] service provider.

"DDoS attacks are a temporary inconvenience to website visitors but do not pose a security risk.

"SOCA's website contains only publicly available information and does not provide access to operational material."

Illegal assault

This 'temporary inconvenience' looks to have been caused by some disgruntled web users who aren't happy that SOCA recently shut down 36 websites that were essentially shopping sites for stolen credit card information.

Sophos: "DDoS attacks can cause huge disruption to organisations and their visitors.

This, however, has not been confirmed by SOCA.

Speaking about the incident, Graham Cluley, senior security consultant at Sophos, said: "SOCA is right to highlight that there is no security risk posed by the DDoS attack, but we still have to remember that such an assault is illegal.

"DDoS attacks can cause huge disruption to organisations and their visitors, and can be used to make political points, prevent firms from doing business and even blackmail targeted websites.

"Whoever is to blame - they may have chosen their victim unwisely, as a DDoS attack can land the perpetrators in jail for up to ten years."